Ed Brayton has a post asking why evolution is not generally accepted in the United States—a common question. He suggests a couple answers: primarily, religious leaders have crusaded against evolution as an element of humanistic philosophy which they see as a threat to American institutions, personal happiness, and worldwide spiritual health. But second, he says, the responsibility lies with “[p]rominent scientists” who “make the same arguments the creationists do in equating evolution with atheism.” He singles out Dawkins as a “dogmatic atheist” (an absurd contradiction in terms) who, he says, “rails loudly and often at religion.” This, he says, is bad because we should not confuse “the science of evolution and the philosophical or theological inferences he draws from it.”
The solution Brayton proposes is a compromise:
While evolution may conflict with a literal reading of certain biblical texts, Christianity contains a great many non-literal theological perspectives in addition to the more fundamentalist ones. Indeed, virtually every mainline Christian denomination has accepted evolution...and millions of Christians simply look at evolution as the means by which God created life on the planet.
One wonders why nobody’s thought of this before! Well, the answer is that of course everyone has thought of it before, but it does not solve the problem. And the reason it does not solve the problem is that the issue of the factual truth of evolution as the means of giving rise to the physical structure of the human form is not really the problem. The reason evolution troubles people is epistemological, and ultimately, metaphysical—not biological. (The fact that even creationists are willing to accept the concept of microevolution is testament to this fact.) Evolution education is not about teaching people where their fingers come from, or why men have nipples. It’s about teaching people that experiment, thought, reason, and skepticism can reward us with genuine knowledge which can improve our lives personally and socially, and can answer questions about our origins (which, incidentally, has long been the strongest argument for the existence of God). As Bronowski liked to say, the greatest discovery of science is science itself.
All Christians are creationists to at least some extent. If they are not creationists with regard to the biological origin of man’s physical structure, they are still creationists with regard to man’s soul. And if we are going to concede skepticism and the scientific method in that regard, then we have made the sale, and are simply haggling over the price.
A compromise with religion means this: it is okay not to reason about some things, but to accept them on the basis of emotion, or mere assertion, or tradition. And if we’re going to say that, then why bother insisting that these people believe in the fact of the evolution of the physical structure of species? Science is not a loose-leaf notebook of facts. It is a way of thinking about the world, and that way of thinking is far more important than any particular discovery of any particular scientific enterprise. A compromise with religion is a sell-out on The Fundamental Issue.
To criticize Dawkins for stating this fact, and thereby scaring away religious folks, is to blame the weatherman for making it rain. The problem is that people insist on believing in fairy tales, and shunning those who reveal the fact that they are fairy tales. There is no profit to be made in compromising with them by saying “Well, yes, you can believe in fairy tales and in evolution! O, Jubilation!” No. We would be far better off if people didn’t believe in fairy tales, but were otherwise utterly ignorant about evolution, than to be surrounded by people thoroughly versed in evolution but who nevertheless think it proper to believe in things without evidence.
This sort of compromise is, as far as principles are concerned, indistinguishable from the creationist trick of “equal time”: it says that faith is a method of knowing that is just as valid as reason. What good does it do for us to oppose “equal time” for creationism and evolution in the classroom, when we tell people at the same time that it is perfectly okay for them to believe in fairy tales and in science? It’s understandable that scientists, who find their fields of study so fascinating that they dedicate their lives to these pursuits, would want to just get rid of the frustrating religion issue, and focus on the data. But the fact is, the data are irrelevant as far as education is concerned. Education is about inculcating those virtues and ways of thinking that make for a healthy republic and flourishing individuals. That means confronting the religion issue without fear. It is very regrettable that one would say, as Eugenie Scott has, that we should just try to soothe the fretting masses with assurances that they can still believe in their fairy tales. That does nobody any good, least of all the believers themselves.
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